The HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl supplies quad-core performance, switchable graphics, booming audio, and a sleek aluminum chassis at a fair price, making it the affordable media center laptop to beat.

Why mess with success? Like the model that preceded it, the HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl is a well-designed and powerful 17.3-inch media center laptop that delivers big audio, a big battery, and a bigger-than-average two year warranty. An update to the Editors' Choice HP Pavilion dv7-6143cl, we reviewed earlier this year, the Pavilion dv7-6163cl gets a slight CPU upgrade and more hard drive capacity while shaving $50 off the price. The rest of the feature set remains unchanged, though, oddly, Bluetooth goes missing. Available at Costco for $949.99, the HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl retains the Editors' Choice award the previous model earned. We think it offers the best combination of design and performance and support of any media center laptop that costs less than $1,000.

Similar Products

Design
The Pavilion dv7-6163cl features the same brushed aluminum enclosure as its predecessor, though instead of a silver color, this model features a deep brown color that HP calls "dark umber." A small, illuminated HP logo sits in the lower-left corner of the lid and a thin strip of light frames the touchpad. The look and feel of the laptop was nice; the aluminum surfaces provide a rigid, sturdy feel while effectively repelling fingerprints.

The Pavilion dv7-6163cl tips the scales at 7.4 pounds. There isn't a 17.3-inch media center that you'd want to take on your daily commute, but the preceding Pavilion dv7-6123cl was a little lighter at 7 pounds. The weight discrepancy is likely due to the second hard drive found in the dv7-6163cl. And if you are looking to save even more weight, the Toshiba Satellite P775-S7320 ($849.99, 3.5 stars) is a relatively svelte 6.6 pounds.

The Pavilion dv7's keyboard features chiclet-style keys and dedicated number pad, but no backlighting. There are no dedicated media control keys; play/pause, fast forward, rewind, and volume functions are located on the row of F keys. They are reversed mapped, however, so you don't have to hold the Function button to pause a track, for example, or mute the volume.

Below the keyboard is a large, responsive touchpad with two dedicated mouse buttons. In contrast to the soft feel of the keyboard, the two mouse buttons feel thin and cheap and create a fairly loud clack when pressed. The touchpad supports multi-touch gestures such as two-finger scrolling and pinch zooming. Many times multi-touch gestures can be jumpy, but we found that not to be the case here; two-finger scrolling, for example, was smooth and accurate.

The 17.3-inch display features a 1,600-by-900 resolution, which is what you'll find on similarly priced and sized models, such as the Dell Inspiron 17R-3530DBK ($879.99 list 3.5 stars), HP Pavilion dv7-6123cl, and Toshiba Satellite P775-S7320. For true HD (1080p) you'll need to pony up for a larger 18.4-model, like the Acer Aspire AS8950G-9839 ($1,499.99 street, 4 stars) or a much pricier 17.3-inch model, such as the Sony VAIO VPC-F215FX/BI ($1,799 direct, 4 stars). Movie trailers played in 720p on Apple's site looked crisp on the Pavilion dv7-6163cl and loaded quickly. An HD Webcam sits above the display that can capture video up to a resolution of 1,280-by-800.

Features
Any entertainment-minded desktop replacement worth its weight needs to offer something more than your average and underwhelming laptop speakers. Thankfully, HP and Dr. Dre got in the studio and came up with Beats Audio, which delivers impressive sound to a number of Pavilion laptops, including the dv7-6163cl. The laptop features four speakers; two speakers are located behind the angled speaker bar above the keyboard, and two are located on the front edge of the laptop. The bass response of the speakers can be felt and heard, and the sound reaches an impressively high volume, while retaining its clarity. You'll still need external speakers to fill a room, but for watching movies, viewing YouTube videos, and listening to music, you'll come to appreciate the oomph Beats Audio provides. And when listening to headphones, you'll be surprised by the clear and dynamic sound.

The ports remain unchanged from the model we reviewed this past summer. There's a pair USB 3.0 ports on the left side, and a pair of USB 2.0 ports on the right. Also on the left side are HDMI and VGA video ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a mic jack and two headphone jacks. A tray-loading DVD burner sits on the right side along with the power connection. We were hoping a Blu-ray player might have been added this time around but, alas, it remains on our wish list. The Toshiba Satellite P775-S7320 costs less and features a Blu-ray drive (though it lags in other areas, namely graphics). On the front edge resides a media card reader that supports the SD and MMC formats. The Pavilion dv7-6163cl also features a fingerprint readeran unusual choice for a laptop designed for home use. It's located on the right side of the wrist rest below the number pad.

Wirelessly connectivity comprises of 802.11n Wi-Fi and Intel's Wireless Display 2.0 (WiDi 2.0), which lets you wirelessly stream the laptop's contents to an HDTV (provided you buy the Netgear Push2TV adapter for your HDTV, a $99 extra, to receive the signal). Bluetooth, which was present on the previous Pavilion dv7-6143cl, is absent on the Pavilion dv7-6163cl.

One area where the Pavilion dv7-6163cl offers improvement from its predecessor is hard drive capacity. The Pavilion dv7-6143cl featured a 750GB hard drive, while the Pavilion dv7-6163cl serves up two 500GB hard drives for a full 1TB of storage space. And we must applaud HP for refraining from using some of this capacious capacity for bloatware. Other than a handful of free games, in which you may or may not have an interest and a desktop shortcut encouraging you to "Discover HP webOS," the laptop features software that provides utility. Cyberlink YouCam is on board for use with the Webcam, and HP's SimplePass 2011 works with the fingerprint reader. Other HP utilities include Recovery Manager for creating backups and restoring your system and CoolSense to keep the CPU running smoothly.

As a Costco model, the Pavilion dv7-6163cl comes backed with a two-year warranty instead of the usual one year of coverage. Also, Costco's Concierge Service provides members with troubleshooting and setup help.

On PCMark 7, the Pavilion dv7-6163cl's score of 2,438 points topped the Core i7-2630QM-based Dell Inspiron 17R-3530DBK's
score of 2,368. On our Photoshop CS5 test, the dv7-6163cl's time of 3 minutes 37 seconds was 15 seconds faster than the dv7-6143cl (3:52). And with a time of 1:30, the dv7-6163cl finished our Handbrake benchmark 7 seconds faster than the dv7-6143cl (1:37). Its Cinebench R11.5 score of 5.32 was also a bit better than the older model (4.97).

There were similar upticks in 3D testing. On 3DMark06 at a resolution of 1,024-by-768, the Pavilion dv7-6163cl scored a 12,050 to the dv7-6143cl's score of 10,983. On our Crysis (DirectX 10) benchmark run at 1,024-by-768, the dv7-6163cl averaged 52.9 frames per second (fps) to the dv7-6143cl's 50.4 fps.

The Pavilion dv7-6163cl takes a slight step back, however, with battery life. Perhaps powering a faster CPU and not one but two hard drives reduced its MobileMark 2007 score. Using a 9-cell (100Wh) battery, the dv7-6163cl ran for 8 hours 24 seconds on the test. By comparison, the dv7-6143cl ran for nearly an hour longer, with a time of 9 hours 13 minutes. Still, the Pavilion dv7-6163cl is one of the better options compared to other media center laptops, like the Acer AS8950G-9839 (5:22) and Toshiba P775-S7320 (5:04).

Because it makes so few sacrifices as a sub-$1,000 do-it-all media center laptop, the HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl earns itself the Editors' Choice award. It made some small strides by upgrading the CPU and lowering the price by $50. If you are looking for an affordable quad-core desktop replacement that delivers strong application and 3D performance, long battery life, and booming audio inside a stylish and sturdy enclosure, look no further than the HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl, our new Editors' Choice for media center laptops.

Read More

About the Author

Matthew Elliott, a technology writer for more than a decade, is a PC tester, Mac user, and iPhone photographer. He was an editor for PC Magazine back when it was a print publication, and spent many years with CNET, where he led its coverage of laptop and desktop computers. Having escaped New York for scenic New Hampshire, Matthew freelances for a n... See Full Bio

Bottom Line: Upgrading from McAfee Internet Security to McAfee Total Protection gets you a file encryption utility and extra licenses for the password manager. Unless you need those features, you may be better off with McAfee AntiVirus Plus.

HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl

HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.